Winner · Umbraco US Awards 2026 · The Stars, Stripes & AI v17 Upgrade / AI Content Workflows / Accessibility

Case Study: How Mold Inspection Sciences Made Its Website Its Best Lead Channel

Key results:

  • Winner, Umbraco US Awards 2026: The Stars, Stripes & AI
  • 80% increase in website traffic year over year (50% increase in engaged traffic)
  • 98 accessibility score, up from 86, with zero failed tests
  • <10 minutes of human time to build and publish a new page
  • Monthly video views grew from <1K to >1 million
  • 2026 is a record year for leads, jobs, and revenue
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The Mold Inspection Sciences video library page shown on a laptop
Video watch section

About Mold Inspection Sciences

Mold Inspection Sciences has provided independent mold inspection and testing for more than 20 years, operating in a highly specialized field where trust and expertise drive every engagement. The company serves customers through two web properties, moldsci.com and moldinspectiontexas.com, both built on Umbraco.

With minimal paid advertising, the company's growth has depended on the quality of its content and the strength of its platform. In late 2025, the website was doing its job but not much more: a Umbraco 13 site maintained by a small team, with a content backlog that kept growing and an accessibility goal that never quite made it to the top of the list.

The Challenge

The company's CTO, Paul Sterling, had a clear picture of the opportunity and an equally clear picture of the constraints. Specific hurdles included:

  • Content creation, review, approval, and publish was taking too long
  • Video momentum lived off-site.
  • Search was changing to AI Assistants and answer engines.
  • Years of content had accumulated without a consolidated story.
  • Accessibility had been a "future task" in the backlog for years.
  • The site ran on Umbraco 13 which will be end of life December 14, 2026.

Services Provided

  • Umbraco 13 to Umbraco 17 Upgrade
  • Umbraco Cloud Hosting & Deployment
  • Video Watch Page Design & Development
  • Structured Data, llms.txt & AI Discoverability (SEO / AEO / GEO)
  • Content Audit & Consolidation (ProWorks Website Content Evaluator)
  • Umbraco MCP Setup & Editor Enablement
  • Umbraco.AI Implementation
  • ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator Setup
  • Accessibility Remediation & Monitoring
  • Umbraco.AI Guardrails & Brand Governance
  • Training & Ongoing Support

Bringing our site to a 90%+ accessibility score was always a 'future task' in our backlog. It's now marked complete.

Paul Sterling- CTO, Mold Inspection Sciences

Key Objectives

To make publishing fast enough to keep up with content

so a small team could turn videos and articles into live pages in minutes rather than hours, and spend its time on the content itself.

To capture video momentum on the company's own site

by giving a rapidly growing YouTube audience a reason and a place to land on moldsci.com

To be found by AI, not just by search engines

through structured data, AI-ready content, and a quality gate that evaluates every new page for discoverability before it publishes.

To finish accessibility for good

by measuring the site continuously, fixing what the reports found, and adding new ways for visitors to consume content.

To keep AI-assisted content on brand

with guardrails, brand profiles, and human review so that speed never came at the expense of quality.

Our Solution

ProWorks and the Mold Inspection Sciences team worked through the site in seven stages between November 2025 and July 2026, treating AI as a tool that helps editors do more rather than one that replaces them.

  1. Upgrade to Umbraco 17 (Nov–Dec 2025). Upgraded the site from Umbraco 13 to Umbraco 17 on Umbraco Cloud.
  2. Video and discoverability (Dec 2025–Jan 2026). Designed and built video watch pages to bring the YouTube audience on-site, and implemented schema markup, llms.txt, and other AEO/GEO improvements.
  3. Content consolidation (Feb 2026). Ran the ProWorks Website Content Evaluator across the site to score every page for brand alignment and search health, then used its recommendations to consolidate, refresh, and retire content so the site told one clear story for LLMs and users.
  4. Publishing speed (Feb 2026). Connected Umbraco MCP so the team could create document structure and publish content faster and in bulk using AI.
  5. Quality gate (Mar–Apr 2026). Implemented Umbraco.AI with the ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator, which reviews every new piece of content for quality, brand alignment, and AI discoverability before it goes live.
  6. Accessibility (May–Jun 2026). Used the Accessibility Reporter package to measure and monitor every page, remediated the issues it surfaced, and added a "listen to this post" audio feature to every article.
  7. Guardrails (Jul 2026). Configured Umbraco.AI guardrails and brand profiles so AI-assisted content stays within the company's guidelines as usage grows.
Accessibility Reporter results showing the score rising from 86 to 98

Statistics

1MM+
Monthly video views, up from under 1,000
80%
Increase in website traffic year over year
25%+
Of new clients from website chat and contact forms
The ProWorks team in Chicago, wearing feather boas, accepting The Stars, Stripes & AI award from Brad Rockwood of Umbraco HQ in 2026

Winner: Umbraco US Awards 2026

On September 30, 2026, at the Umbraco US Festival in Chicago, Umbraco presented Mold Inspection Sciences and ProWorks with The Stars, Stripes & AI award. The jury recognized the project for using AI as a publishing engine rather than decoration: bulk content creation through Umbraco MCP and the ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator checking every page for quality, brand alignment and AI discoverability before it goes live.

For major transformation of Mold Inspection Sciences site with the help of AI. A new page now takes under 10 minutes of human time, traffic is up 80% year over year and 2026 is a record year for leads and revenue.

Umbraco US Awards 2026 jury

2026 has been a record year in terms of the number of leads, jobs, and revenue. That's for a 20+ year old company in a super niche area with minimal marketing and paid ad spend.

Paul Sterling- CTO, Mold Inspection Sciences

Results & Impact

The program delivered measurable results for a company that had never relied on heavy marketing spend:

  • Website traffic increased 80% year over year, with engaged traffic up 50%. The company credits AI discoverability as a major factor
  • Monthly video views grew from under 1,000 to more than 1 million across paid and organic channels, and the new watch pages capture that audience directly on moldsci.com
  • Publishing is no longer the bottleneck. A new video page or blog post takes less than 10 minutes of human time to structure and publish, so the team's effort goes into the content itself
  • The site's accessibility score rose from 86 to 98 with zero failed tests, closing a backlog item that had waited years
  • Website chat and contact forms account for roughly 10% of leads but more than 25% of new clients, the highest-converting channel the company has
  • 2026 is a record year for leads, jobs, and revenue across both companies

See the Mold Inspection Sciences case study from Umbraco

Key Outcomes

  • Publishing in minutes, not hours
  • Found by AI and search alike
  • Accessibility complete and monitored
  • Video audience captured on-site
  • Content quality protected as speed increased
  • A repeatable playbook for regional microsites
Laptop showing a screen of a Mold Inspection Sciences blog post with the listen to article functionality

Let’s Build Your AI Ready Platform

ProWorks helps content teams get more from Umbraco with AI tools that enhance editors rather than replace them. If your publishing has become the bottleneck, or your site isn't being found where your customers are searching, let's talk.

Talk to an Umbraco AI Expert
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